the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

as a key ingredient in a Cheeky Vimto i think we can safely say that port is not just for poshos and olds any more

Port is a fantastic drink, but it makes my cheeks go rosy red and it is so easy to down fast - it could quite easily become one's ruin.

Rudd repeatedly using this gritted passive aggressive tone in her statements e.g. "Today I set out how we will offer the Windrush Generation greater rights than they currently enjoy". Fucking disgrace.

"gritted passive aggressive tone"

I think that is her only setting tbh.

I would be interested in polling how much they’re enjoying them right now. Which, I’m aware, is entirely the fucking point.

JRM's take on this is unsurprisingly terrible:

I do not believe that the interests of the collective allow you to crush individuals who may get in your way. I believe that we are a nation built on the individual, so that the rights of each individual are a valuable and important thing, to be protected by the government ...

I will draw a parallel with the Windrush issue. The Windrush issue came about because the state put the interests of the collective ahead of those individuals who had come here perfectly legally prior to 1973, and that it was more convenient for the Home Office to make them prove who they were and show their papers. This is socialism.

God help me I can hear it in his voice and cadences.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/24/sleeping-rough-comfortable-army-exercises-tory-mp-adam-holloway

I’m 52, I was in the army; to be honest for me sleeping rough in central London is a lot more comfortable than going on exercise in the army.

That's ok then as so many ex-army soldiers end up homeless.

i guess i fell in with the wrong crowd over and over again, like a moth to flame

solitary posts that effortlessly sum up

there are maybe ~50 undergrads each year at oxford who went there with the accrual of political power in mind when they applied at 17. they certainly exist, but it's not why i or anyone else i was friends with went there.

there's a bigger group of undergrads who had in mind the cultural sphere they'd find easier to enter post-oxford thanks to networking while at oxford. they weren't that bothered about the education or the academic "atmosphere". most state school kids don't understand this networking opportunity is one of the "benefits" of going there until they get there, so these were all private school kids who arrived knowing the lay of the land in terms of things like student journalism. obviously some state school kids figure it out once they get there.

all of which is not to say the whole setup is benign, but this...

Thing about Oxbridge grads like JHB is, there are many ways to get a fine education if you were interested in an education. That interest alone doesn't explain their choice of Oxford or Cambridge! They clearly wanted to be around powerful and wealthy people, and to acquire or maintain power and wealth. That's what Oxbridge is for.

is not at all true for the vast vast majority of kids there. oxbridge is a unique academic/intellectual opportunity for kids who are passionate about that. i think that's what draws most of the applicants. and they're not wrong. i have taught at several universities including oxford. the undergrad experience at oxbridge is light years ahead of even the ivy league.

I wonder if the oxbridge culture imago describes is largely on the arts/humanties side of things, not so much science?

― lana del boy (ledge), Tuesday, April 24, 2018 8:50 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ding ding

probably wearing my shit-tinted glasses tbh

caek otm.

the undergrad educational experience at ivy leagues is in many cases an afterthought, both for professors and the administrations

i'm not sure if i knew what an ivy was at 17, but i definitely thought oxbridge was the best place to learn physics in the UK.

i do think in hindsight i was right, but regardless of that, it's a less cynical motive than lust for power, and i think it's more common.

Millionaire backbencher refuses to not be on camera for more than a minute.

This woman tells how she was unable to attend her own mother's funeral due to immigration problems related to the Windrush scandal. #FightingToBeBritish pic.twitter.com/iGGQXQK5l9

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) April 24, 2018

main politics story on BBC

Corbyn anti-Semitism meeting 'disappointing', Jewish leaders say - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43887223

yesterday, when I checked, top story on times and guardian was windrush. nothing on the BBC. nothing today

this is actually a very big story just saying

yep, same this morning on R4, plax. Privatise these fucks.

it sortof makes you feel really hopeless, voiceless

again and again I realise that how I feel is how I'm intended to feel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F9bWzD_IUI

some peak Amber Rudd lols here to cheer up plax, possibly the last time she ever said "judge us on our record".

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/24/beyond-belief-brexit-app-for-eu-nationals-wont-work-on-iphones?CMP=share_btn_tw

After arriving late for a meeting in Brussels to reassure MEPs of the efficiency of the British government, officials from Amber Rudd’s department conceded that a key function on the app would not work on the phone brand used by more than half of the adult population in the UK.

as easy as LK Bennett eh?

Lol.

Also, "the £72 cost of registering", is that for real?

sounds about right for this lot.

I've heard lots of commanding speak from them that friction-less borders are a piece of piss etc, perhaps better judging their grasp on technology on their record, rather than the bluster.

so how much public money do we think went to some godawful private contractor like capita to develop this not-fit-for-purpose app

The government has its own digital service, launched a few years ago, which I assume was responsible. It's one of the few things they've chosen to do in-house over the last few years.

Just so they can fuck everything up and say: See I told you outsourcing is more efficient than big govt.

It won’t be the Government Digital Service. They’ve got a strong objection to apps and prevent departments building them whenever they can. More likely a Home Office Digital project that was pushed out to look like something whizzy was happening.

what on earth is their problem with apps?

Apps are bad (if largely because you have to port for more than one OS) when you can just have an actually v good website like gov.uk (certainly compared to the old directgov days) to handle processes like this.

but surely what you want to achieve is for people to be able to access services in the way that feels most user-friendly to them?

Which I would've thought would be a website that can be accessed by almost everyone everywhere based on technical and UX standards established over decades. I did used to work (alarmingly underpaid compared to gov.uk contractors) for the Civil Service for a few years though so perhaps I would say that :)

This has been doing the rounds today

https://i.imgur.com/M1VBPH9.jpg

i'm not saying that a website can't be accessed and it's usually my first choice but it's not the preferred medium of lots and lots of people whose online experience is almost wholly app mediated

that feels roughly right to me, though the trust/unitary board doesn't much influence editorial decision-making

the politics side of bbc news feels particularly untethered from the almost obsessive caution that tends to obtain across the rest of the corporation

xpost

but it's not the preferred medium of lots and lots of people whose online experience is almost wholly app mediated

Make a website that looks a bit more like an app? Everybody's happy. I fear this may be one of those 52-48% kinda scenarios tbh

Everyone saying Yvette Cooper did so well with her question attacking May demonstrating continued inability to get it.

Good thread:

Commentariat love citing Yvette Cooper as delivering better #PMQs than Corbyn (dare I suggest... groupthink?) but it's weird here. Of *course* Cooper's failure to oppose, as shadow home sec, the 2014 Act that enabled deportation of Commonwealth ppl, left May a straw to clutch at. https://t.co/IhLkuFQMSX

— CarolineJMolloy (@carolinejmolloy) April 25, 2018

From that article the app problem seems to be more of a hardware issue, that the phone has to read the chip in the passport, and iPhones only allow that functionality for Apple Pay?

I don't see how b) affects the BBC directly, but I guess. Few of the people in a) would have direct (or even indirect) effect on the people in c).

I think it's much, much, less about deliberately subverting the BBC (this is not a government capable of that sort of subversion) and much more about the media landscape in the UK, the talent pool and how the BBC hires from both.

All three of those things are changing pretty fundamentally right now. And it hasn't escaped notice in the BBC that younger audiences are feeling disenfranchised. I think signs of change will start being visible soon.

otm, partic your second graf stet

tbf, and i don't hold with conspiracy theories either, the post - that guy's BBC insider credentials weren't exactly earthshaking btw - posited an influence started under Cameron rather than this shower

Hope you're right stet.

and there is a hard to shake feeling even amongst non-conspiracists like me that the current BBC's news agenda is pretty hostile to the Corbyn Project

next you'll be trying to tell me the impartial BBC are still actually vetting their political staff.

i don't think the bbc are necessarily so much consciously, actively hostile as just the institutional spectrum of 'mainstream' political views is pretty narrow, centre-right, and rarely internally examined

Chakraborrty was posting something the other day about BBC staff being vetted by the MI5 up to the 90's and how they are still strictly "no comment" when asked if they do their own vetting these days.

Don’t need to vet these days. They just ask which school they went to: pic.twitter.com/rsVxUzPGhX

— Randall Northam (@RandallNortham) April 22, 2018

FWIW BBC News site editor has explained to protesters recently their choices and what's behind them in some cases: https://twitter.com/suttonnick/with_replies

The way Rudd and May keep effectively saying "don't blame us, the public wanted tougher action on illegals" just makes me want to see another unprecedented gathering of solidarity in Parliament Square ASAP.

xp we vet ilx on a similar basis